contents
The Naked and the Drugged--dope use in Vietnam, page 5 Rick Rose
Think Little, an Earth Day speech, page 7 Wendell Berry
Photographs by Emmett Gowen, pages 10-11
interview:  William Kunstler, page 12 Guy Mendes
New interest in an old crop, page 15 Harold Gage
The most sekrit high level meeting the world never saw, page 17
books: Points of Rebellion and Do It! Ralph Brown
verse: by Walter Brown, page 6; by Bruce Rogers, page 18 cover:  drawing by Peter Solt of the Chicago Seed.
The blue-tail fly is published monthly by blue-tail fly, in at 210 W. Third Street,  Lexington, Ky. 40507.
c.
fbi vs. btf
You might be interested to know that you are now reading a full-scale, come -of-age, big league underground newspaper. That's because the FBI has decided the btf is worthy of its valuable attention.
The Federal Bureau of Intimidation recently visited one of the fly's Louisville distributors and asked to be notified the next time the paper came out. An agent told the store owner that the fbi was "keeping an eye on the Left in Lexington"
This visit intimidated the store owner into refusing to accept any more copies of the btf for selling because he didn't want to become involved with the fbi.
This is only the most recent example that has come to light of the fbi's activities in Louisville. Last November, during the big Moratorium march on Washington, the fbi guys tried to intimidate people leaving Louisville in a specially chartered bus.
The Louisville Times reported that fbi agents at the bus station attempted to procure names and pictures of the march participants from its newsmen. Happily, the newsmen refused
What was never reported, however, is that the fbi did manage to obtain the names of some of the college students who went to the peaceful demonstration It proceeded to call up administration officials that these students were members of SDS (a big crime) and successfully intimidated at least some of the administrators into turning over the students* private records for investigation
One student who learned this procedure had been taken against him was not only not a member of SDS, but he didn't even know anyone who was. Still, the college turned over his records on this false (and groundless) pretext.
As bad as domestic surveillance already is, the Nixon administration has admitted to being in the process of formulating even more totalitarian measures to deal with the growing dissent It appears that we're about to witness a modern-day miracle: the resurrection of Joe McCarthy.
Nixon administration officials are already on the brink of panic.
"It wouldn't make a bit of difference if the war and racism ended overnight," one high-level aide has been quoted as saying. "We're dealing with the criminal mind, with people who have snapped for some reason."
Abortion reform victory in N.Y.
NEW YORK (LNS)-New York's abortion reform bill passed in the State Senate Friday, April 10, a triumphant conclusion to a bitter four-year struggle to free New York women from the state's oppressive restrictions. The old law permitted abortions only to save the life of the mother.
The bill passed easily in the Senate, after it barely escaped defeat the day before in the Assembly On Thursday, as the Speaker was about to announce after role call that the bill had not passed, Assemblyman George M. Michaels rose to change his vote from "no" to "yes."
"I realize, Mr. Speaker," Michaels said, "that I am terminating my political career, but I cannot in good conscience sit here and allow my vote to be the one that defeats this bill." Michaels represents a heavily Catholic constituency, and the church in recent weeks has mounted a fierce anti-reform campaign from its Sunday pulpits, denouncing supporters of the bill as "murderers."
blue-tail fly
Vol. 1, No.  7 ^
staff:  Guy Mendes, Rick Bell, David Holwerk, Jack Lyne, Bucky Young, Nick DeMartino, Sue Anne Salmon,  John Simon,  Julie Mendes, Gretchen Marcum, Ralph Brown, Don Pratt, Mimi Fuller, Paul Genin, Chuck Koehler,  Tony Urie and Becky Martin.
Black Assemblyman Charles Rangel, a Catholic who voted for reform, was angry at the church's vituperation. He told reporters that he had been denounced by his church in the parish newspaper because he had "acted improperly." "I am hurt and disappointed," Rangel said, "that the church did not act when we tried to stop the welfare cutbacks, or get decent housing, or get basic health care and hot water for our people."
When Michaels re-cast his deciding vote he told the Assembly sobbing "My own son, my own son called me a whore for voting against this bill. And my other son begged me not to let my vote be the one that defeated the bill."
The new legislation permits abortions up to the 24th week of pregnancy. New York becomes the second state (Maryland was first) to permit virtually restriction -free abortions. Neither the Maryland nor New York reform bills require state re* sidency to obtain abortions"Hawaii's liberalized law does have such a requirement
Air pollution and your car
By FREDERICK JURGEN College Press Service
(CPS)"Air pollution is like the weather"everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it. What can you do about it? After all, it's those giant factory smokestacks that make our air dirty.
Let's take an imaginary ride in the family car (in a recent survey, most Americans indicate that their favorite form of recreation was riding in their car). We're driving the latest detroit creation for the insecure American male. 5000 pounds of polished 'machinery 2/Number Seven
driven by the most perfect internal combustion engine that man has learned to build; four hundred cubic inches of throbbing sexual adaquacy, a steel and plastic embodyment of America's a-chievements. We can go 125 miles per hour if we want to! Think of the danger, the excitement! Anybody who can afford dollar a pound for a two-ton lump of steel and chrome can lead the "good life", can "move up", be a "swinger", or get a "piece of action""it's the American Dream.
The automobile is responsible for sixty per cent of the air pollution in the United States (Environment Magazine, October 1969). The internal combustion engine is a grossly ineffecient machine. At best it uses 25% of the energy of combustion for mechanical power, the remainder is given off as heat. The next time you put four dollars worth of gas in your tank consider the fact that only one dollar's worth of that gas is being used to drive your car, the other three dollar's worth is merely heating up your engine and the air around it. Of course the oil companies and state government are still collecting those three dollars.
The internal combustion engine liberates various poisons as by-products of the burning of gasoline. Some of the more familiar ones are: carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and lead. In 1967 the government spent 3.2 million dollars on research on emission controls for the internal combustion engine and only $115,000 on research for low-emission alternatives to it. A clear-cut case of treating the symptoms, but not the disease.
There are engines in existence now which emit a tiny fraction of the noxious material which are released by even a controlled internal combustion engine.